Therapist's Blog

**Disclaimer: If you actively watch pornography and enjoy it I do not expect you to have a positive reaction to this blog posting. This is intended for those in relationships or who are single who have come to the conclusion that porn is ruining their lives in some way. The views expressed are based on counselling and therapy experience with individuals, couples, and families across age groups and cultures.**

The porn industry is slowly garnering more and more criticism as access and content disturb more and more audiences.

Marketed for audiences over the legal age of majority, it was found that the median age range for those who view porn for the first time - the images defined by full nudity and provocative situations - is between 11 and 13 in North America and Europe. It serves as an enticing simple pleasure that locks on to our most basic instinct in sexual gratification and is largely viewed as a private experience. Porn actors and actresses, and those who portray them such as the episode "Teamwork" in House, MD, periodically show up on record in favour of porn to help couples improve their sex lives and how it is a legitimate industry, and so on.

I usually don't know where to start when kicking down the walls of lies these folks have put up. Generally, as I will now, I go after the legitimacy of the industry. Every other week another "star" or "starlet" leaves the porn industry after coming to the realization that what they are doing is disgusting on multiple levels. Former starlets Vanessa Belmond and Shelley Lubben are great witnesses to the lengths women will go through (pun intended) to put themselves through scenes, primarily using drugs and alcohol to remove themselves from the experience. Men are equally disappointed with themselves, citing internal battles with sexuality and general struggles with shame, doubt, and alike as their reasons for even starting in this industry.

And these are the folks who are licensed, paid, and tested to participate in the industry. It is estimated that more than 75% of the available pornographic material on the internet is made of men and women being recorded without their knowledge or consent, who are underage, and who are doing illegal actions for viewers (beastiality, incest, mutilation, other forms of violence). This doesn't include animated and game versions of pornography that go several steps further using "models" over the age of majority.

So what makes porn a problem?

Although not necessarily addictive, at least not in the same sense as cocaine, porn does distort our sexuality in several ways. Frequent masturbation decreases testosterone and is linked to forms of erectile dysfunction. The dysfunction isn't caused by cardiovascular disorder - it is psychological. Men and women who regularly view porn become aroused more easily to what is seen through pixels than human beings. Marriages have dissolved over this - very treatable - issue. This issue has also led to various degrees of affairs as either partner "rediscover" their sexual appetite. Bear in mind, there are many forms of sex addiction and there are those who are addicted to sex who don't care for porn and those who are addicted to porn and are able to remain, more or less, monogamous.

Porn does increase sex drive. This is best described as an internalized sex drive - masturbatory - but, similar to what people view, it escalates. What starts as a novel fascination with Sports Illustrated can devolve into BDSM fantasies and, further, into violent sexual actions with living, breathing partners. What starts as an occasional view can quickly turn into a daily habit. How? Sex is a natural drive. Some versions of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs even goes so far as to place sex into the biological needs (lowest need). Those who do this have no concept of how the Hierarchy works in doing so but once it's online it apparently truth.

Finally, regardless of popular belief porn objectifies men and women. I have had it described in my office by a woman who said that she could tell by the way her husband looks at her that he has been watching porn. (The number of times I have heard this have made me wonder if I should do group therapy for this.) The eyes and body language focus on genitals and general sexual behaviours. Even speech is objectifying. I have no issues with adjectives like "Sexy" but there are words and phrases that no one uses outside porn to describe the person of sexual desire.

If you or someone you know is being negatively impacted by porn in their lives please invite them to seek counselling. This post only scratches the surface but, as always, I save the best for the office. For more information please contact me.